There is a saying in English that the opera is not finished until the fat lady sings. The sarcastic phrase reflects the size of most opera singers. And so it was that I attended an opera in Bahrain, as the National Theatre celebrated its first anniversary. I enjoyed listening to Placido Domingo. I waited for the "fat lady"; instead, I was pleased to see two young and attractive sopranos who were extremely agile. I also enjoyed listening to the German Philharmonic Orchestra Rhineland-Palatinate, led by Maestro Eugene Kohn. The above event is the brainchild of Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, Bahraini Minister of Culture, who has made Bahrain the permanent capital of Arab culture, music and international theater. Domingo and the two sopranos Ailyn Pérez and Julia Novikova sang together, and then solo, with some duets as well. Some of the numbers they sang were famous, and were well received by the audience, who participated in the singing. If the above is not enough, on the next evening, there was another international concert with two musicians, a pianist and a violinist. At night, a dinner brought us together with Domingo, the two sopranos, and the musicians. I chose to sit next to the attractive soprano Julia, who told me she was Russian and lived in Berlin. I took her phone number saying I was going to give it to my daughter. On my other side there was dear friend and colleague Baria Alamuddin, next to Domingo. Perhaps the reader will find this strange, but most of the conversation focused on football and teams like Real Madrid. Between this and that, I found out that Bahrain was hosting a book fair on a ship. A friend invited me to go along with him but I declined, because I do not like the sea even in the summer, let alone winter. Instead of seasickness, I chose to attend a lecture on the new Egyptian constitution at the Bahrain Museum, with the participation of Dr. Yahya al-Gamal, professor at the Faculty of Law at Cairo University, and Dr. Salah Fadl, professor of Literary Criticism at Ain Shams University and a member of the Arabic Language Academy. I sat next to Issam Awad, Egypt's ambassador to Bahrain, and listened to a well-presented overview by two experts from the Commission of Fifty drafting the new Egyptian constitution. The content of the talk was not for publication, but I choose to publish one percent of what I heard, banking on everyone's good will: The members of the panel hope to finish the constitution before year's end, then two weeks later, put it to a referendum, followed by presidential and legislative elections, probably together, in the Spring. Al-Azhar had hosted a group of prominent Egyptian experts and intellectuals to discuss the shape of the new state, who then called for a "democratic civil state" at the end of the meeting. However, according to the two honorable speakers in Bahrain, the two members who represent the Salafists in the group drafting the constitution objected to the word civil, towards which they seem to be sensitive. After much deliberation, it was agreed to elaborate the term without using it, and the phrase in the pertinent clause became "a modern constitutional democratic state." I took some notes of what I heard, and went over them afterwards with Dr. Yahya and Dr. Salah. However, the Egyptian constitution is an issue that does not tolerate any errors, so perhaps I will return to this subject in the future after I show what I intend to publish to the constitutional experts and get their opinion. Of course, a visit to Bahrain would not be complete without a meeting with my friend Sheikh Mohammed Al Mubarak, Deputy Prime Minister, but I shall return to our conversation together soon, and spare the reader today from the miseries of the Bahraini opposition, and content myself instead with having conveyed the joy of three days in Bahrain between the Opera, the constitution of Egypt, and the hospitality of our sister Shaikha Mai and all Bahraini friends. [email protected]
